Abstract

In recent times, the concept of tasks increasingly arises in the literature. Tasks defined as occupational tasks that workers have to perform get more and more important in analysing different research questions. The most common application is the Task-Based-Approach (Autor/Levy/Murnane 2003) that explains rising wage inequality in many industrialized countries by changing tasks. However, the distinction between analytical/interactive and manual non-routine tasks as well as cognitive and manual routine tasks also provides a basic concept for further research on tasks like a task-based analysis of occupational segmentation of the labour market or occupational mobility.
In contrast to the existing task operationalization in Germany that is based on survey data, we use – following the approach in the U.S. – expert knowledge about competencies and skills – that are usually required for performing an occupation. Based on an expert data base (BERUFENET of the German Federal Employment Agency), we provide an alternative task operationalization for Germany and calculate the main task type and the composition of tasks for different occupational classifications (German Classification of Occupations 1988 and German Classification of Occupations 2010) and for different classification levels (2-digit- and 3-digit-codes). In this paper, we describe our procedure and give first descriptive evidence on the validity of our new task operationalization.